“After having tried the experiment for a year, and finding that more than one half the people of the village had perished, and that the rest were very miserable, those that remained signified their wish to communicate with Jove. Accordingly Mercury came to them, and the people desired him to take back to his master the power he had placed in their hands. ‘Tell him,’ said the people, ‘that we are now satisfied that Jove is wiser than we; and that it is in mercy, and not in judgment, that he has ruled over the weather. We wish to restore things to their former condition; for we believe that it is best for man that there should be a providence, whose ways are above our ways, and whose thoughts are higher than our thoughts.’”
“This allegory,” continued Cherry, “may teach you, Frederic, what I have before said, that things are better managed as they are, than if confided to men: and instead of grumbling at the ways of providence, we should submit to them in cheerfulness, regarding them as the ways of a Father, who knows the wants of his creatures, and tenderly regards their happiness.”
“This is all very well,” said Frederic; “and I thank you for it, Cherry; but I am afraid I shall never be like you. Pray how is it, Cherry, that you make yourself so cheerful?”
“By making the best of everything, Fred!”
“But everybody cannot do this,” was the reply.
“Yes they can, my dear Frederic; I know they can. I used to be whimsical and capricious, myself—sometimes sweet and sometimes sour; but our good grandmother, who is now dead, used to talk to me, and she taught me better. She once told me a little story, which made a great impression on my mind, and I began to practise on the plan suggested by that story. At first I found it difficult, but after a while it came more easy; and now it is my custom to be cheerful: it is my habit to take pleasant views of things. When any disagreeable event occurs, I repeat the title of the story my grandmother told me—‘Always make the best of it;’ and this puts me in a right frame of mind, and so I do make the best of it. All this is easy to me now, for it is easy to do that which habit has rendered familiar. Our habits are of our own making; so, if a person wishes to render cheerfulness easy, he has only to cultivate the habit of being cheerful.”
“It must be a good story that can do such wonderful things,” said Frederic; “pray tell it to me, Cherry.”
“With all my heart,” said Cherry; and so she went on as follows:—